[AlisonR]

One of my plum trees and one of my apricot trees are looking very sick in Sicily.
The plum is weeping copious what looks like fruit jelly, & has no leaves,
the apricot isnt weeping so badly, but has lost all leaves.
They are both alongside healthy a healthy pair ( that is Pair not pear)
My inclination is to cut the plum and start again, not so sure about the
apricot, which was magnificent in it's good days.
Both are 6 or 7 years old, and have been pruned annually in February, as is the custom in W.Sicily

Advice please, many thanks

[Alisdair]

Alison, Sorry to hear about your fruit trees.
If the gum is coloured, it's probably a bacterial canker (especially if the leaves, before they fell, had necrotic spots on them which eventually dropped out leaving little holes).
If the gum is absolutely clear and sappy, it's more likely to be the boring larva of a moth, but it would be very unusual for you to have such an infestation.
There is a nematode treatment for the borer; I'm in Greece at the moment so don't have access to my Koppert bio control catalogue, but I'm sure others on the forum can advise.
If the problem is canker, my own inclination would be to scrap the badly infected trees and start again. Copper sulphate does control it to some extent; at least in the UK is not an "authorised" treatment for peach-family trees, but as it is authorised for control of leaf curl there, there's actually nothing to stop people using it, thus keeping leaf curl at bay and at the same time fighting the canker!

[MikeHardman]

Alison - the symptom is gummosis (just to give you another keyword for you to Google with), one of the causes being bacterial canker, as Alisdair wrote.
Have a read of this - http://www.ca.uky.edu/agcollege/plantpathology/ext_files/ppfshtml/ppfs-fr-t-8.pdf

[David Bracey]

The description sounds just like Gummosis which is a physiological disease and is a response from the plant to damage.  The damage can be caused by insects, bacterial canker and so forth.  I have seen a small orchard completely wiped out in the Gard.

There is no effective control.  The problem is increased by wet weather therefore prune in the spring or even the summer, definitely not in the autumn or winter.